Is there a future for old unwanted books?

[CambridgeWorks]

As title. This set me thinking, as I was offered several trays and boxes full of mostly hardbacks in used and very dusty condition. Approx 200ish?? He was expecting about £50 the lot. I was not even tempted. Despite bound volumes of Wireless World, 1948 - 1952 ish, Various ham radio books 50s to 70s, Sturman's classic extensive radio book and lots of specialist subjects including CRT, radio design, test gear design, transformer and inductor design and the usual mass market Camm books, encyclopaedias and "how to" books by Odhams that most of us have seen at some time. There were about 12 volumes of radio and tv servicing as well. The oldest was a BBC (engineering?) handbook I think, mid 30s. Also a lot of titles I do not recall ever seeing before in my decades of interest and rummaging at rallies.
BUT, there was nothing of my particular WW2 Radio/Radar/Beams interest and nowhere for me to keep them all if bought anyway, nor the time to sort through, so as to offer on here for next to nothing, or even for free. (See the recent post about 1cwt of books for collection only!) If I had bought them, it would have taken me many hours sourcing packaging material and driving to the post office and dealing with emails. Time I find very limited these days, although retired. So, as I declined the purchase, they have now gone for recycling.
I did however come away with just a very small GWM Radio paper booklet all about the Canadian 52 set.
SO, what is to become of all this irreplaceable printed paper? I know there is the American radio site with lots of magazine pdf.
In fact, both yesterday and today I had 2 separate people pick up about 20 years worth of Practical Wireless and Practical Electronics, mostly hand bound and 60s - 70s that I had offered on freecycle. I previously offered them to the local radio club on their facebook page for collection, but no interest, not one comment even!
So, do we as hobbyists really need these very old technical books now or just rely on the internet for supply?
A sad reflection really on our modern attitudes on old, once valuable and treasured books.
Rob

[Paul_RK]

I'm not sure such books are much less wanted now than they ever were, but as ever they have to come to the notice of someone who either wants them or sees an opportunity in saving / selling them, otherwise they get thrown. Several bound volumes of Wireless World, for example, from the '50s and '70s have very recently sold for £25 each plus postage.

Paul

[OscarFoxtrot]

I know there's stuff on the web, but what worries me is what happens when the owners of the relevant websites die and the hosting stops getting paid for.

[joebog1]

I must admit, that if I want to study and learn something, it must be on paper.
I have been staring at CRT's and now LED's for most of my life, first green, then orange, then 4 colour, now six trillion or whatever, but I am just reading. I dont really take anything in and retain it.

Just my take

Joe

[Cobaltblue]

Originally Posted by OscarFoxtrot

I know there's stuff on the web, but what worries me is what happens when the owners of the relevant websites die and the hosting stops getting paid for.

Don't you know?

No one pays and no one has to make any effort to put content on the web

There is a whole generation maybe two that believes this.

It's all free don't you know

Anyone who runs a web site will get some pretty stupid questions and suggestions. I am never ceased to be amazed by some of it

Cheers

Mike T

[Ed_Dinning]

Hi Gents, as a retired professional Engineer and IET member, the issue of books has often cropped up, both in discussions at the History of Technology group and among my colleagues.
Many of them have collection of textbooks and papers, with lots of valuable information contained therein but no where to pass them onto when they die.
The IET has an excellent library with most of titles ever published and these are accessible to members with a short delay.

I have looked at setting up an archive of engineering at the museum where I volunteer, but professional archivists tend to rubbish this type of book, preferring a rare first edition of some early book of poems (valuable though it may be, it is not a goldmine of knowledge, only money).
I agree with Joe about the pleasure of a book for reference; a lot of on line stuff is at best inaccurate, or contains false information.
I don't know what the answer is but I hope this thread creates some useful discussions and ideas.

Ed

[Craig Sawyers]

Well, I'd have cheerfully taken a bunch away, Rob. Wish I'd known!

[bobskie]

I really love the old radio/electronics books, when I see one I usually can't help but buy it. Just the smell and general feel of them is enough. I often find myself searching fruitlessly on the internet for some solution to a problem then I think, why don't I just check a book? It often yields much better results, though it's never the first thing I think to check. The forum is my go to place for information, if I can't find it somewhere online I know someone on here will know the answer but of course this knowledge won't be around forever, that's why books are important and why I would never throw one out. They can pass on knowledge hundreds of years after the writer has passed away, retaining the knowledge for future generations in a way the internet just can't manage.

[dave walsh]

Rob did say said he had put things on Freecycle etc with no response but it's all a conundrum! I've got [theoretically] more space than a lot of others [perhaps] but life issues pop up and you get very tired. This is really the first time there's been such a situation. In the past only the rich could make a recording [print/oil paintings] and have homes stuffed with possessions or live long enough to face a problem!

The "re-cycling" [ie binning] of things worries me a little and can seem [perhaps a bit unfairly] petulant at times but there are stories of car boot sellers smashing items when they don't reach the price hoped for and it does occur on here occasionally. Why not just give them away [if possible] if they don't go? It's perhaps significant that free items usually "sell". Maybe it's a generational thing with younger folks valuing nothing dating before themselves but I don't want to believe that or drive wedges between people. BBC news reported today that 50% of Landfill is building waste We can all imagine how must good stuff is being buried/wasted.

Dave

[mark_in_manc]

I find a glut of old books a bit of a problem, but choosing from a selection a great pleasure. There's a role here for dealers.

[MrBungle]

I think the future for such books is scan them, convert them to PDF and upload to archive.org / libgen.io or somewhere

[emeritus]

Something you often don't get from the scanned bound collections of journals that are available on line are the adverts, which normally get stripped out.

[Grubhead]

Unless you put magazines in sealed plastic bags and never handle them, then they will just not last. The grease and oils on your fingers attacks modern paper. Damp will cause "foxing" - brown spots on books or paper.
Libraries and archives will of course keep copies for the public to use and see, but converting them to digital is a problem. Local authorities are pretty strapped for cash and scanning is expensive for them. I asked my own LA if they had any options to scan books, papers etc. I did this after I had picked up a cheap printer scanner from Cannon for about £50. I pointed out to them any A4 sized document could be scanned and they could then put it on a website. But all I got was a pile of the typical excuses, including the famous "union objection".
Of course the biggest problem in getting magazines online is copyright. We are talking at least 75 years before that runs out. It never does if it is Crown Copyright.

I should imagine the adverts are taken out to stop free advertising!

[G4_Pete]

For me there will always be a place on the shelf for old books. Classics such as "The Art of Electronics" by by Horowitz and Hill and the "Basic Electronics" common core services REME series will remain on the shelf.

The internet as an alternative to books is invaluable for instant valve data and web based calculators but nothing beats retiring to the garden with a book ,paper pens, and a cup of tea to work out some problem or design.

At work they disbanded the library and signed us up to an electronic internet technical library. The library, a place of refuge and peace away from phones and disturbances consigned to history.

Pete

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by Grubhead

I should imagine the adverts are taken out to stop free advertising!

Love it!

The urge to crank-up the time machine and pop back to buy some of the delights sprinkled through old copies of Wireless World, or better, to wander into some of the old emporia. To visit M&B's again, but not as a student living on a grant (something else in the past).

As the name on a few patents, the longevity of copyright seems rather unfair. The length it's now set at probably stifles innovation. There are film studios and record companies fighting like the devil to get it increased, but is anyone fighting the corner for building the public domain?

David

[kellys_eye]

I use my Kindle every night - literally every night - and couldn't sleep without it.

But I also collect, quite avidly, reference books on many varied and interesting subjects - in a sort of EOTW sort of way. In fact it was reading about such an incidence that spurred me into thinking along those lines as one storyline purported "if you were to start a new civilisation, what TEN books would you take with you".

I couldn't narrow it down to ten books but some of the immediate reference materials struck a chord and I made a point of obtaining them - well, RE-obtaining them as I'd actually bought copies of some titels many, many years ago but sadly lost it in a divorce situation over 20 years ago.

Since starting again (book collecting) my collection has started building again but they are ALL references - not a single novel. All novels are on the aforementioned Kindle!

I've always wanted to see a large screen colour Kindle-type machine too as getting something in pdf in a pixel density to read whole-page would be fantastic.

But the 'death' of books? Not in my lifetime and I suggest it won't happen for decades to come either.

[G6Tanuki]

A decade back, when moving house I was faced with the problem pof what to do with the several boxes of textbooks I'd put in the attic a decade or two earlier when I moved in.

I contacted several local libraries/schools/colleges and gave them a list of what I had. It was all Undergrad-level scientific stuff [a mix of biology and electronics].

There was zero interest. Which I can understand since technology has moved on a lot since the 1990s and having students reading about how contract law worked or genetics was thought to work in the 1990s, from edition 2 of a textbook, would only have confused them when the same book is now on edition 11 and the content is *very* different!

The books went in the skip.

When I used to do training courses I'd often tell the attendees that in 18 months half of what I was telling them would have been proved to be wrong. Old textbooks can be amusing views back to the way people believed things to be but apart from the historic they have little value and in some cases (anything legal or medical for example) could be positively dangerous in the wrong hands.

[ionburn]

I have an absolute mass of downloaded books, but still collect, and use, paper copies when I get them. There is the issue of storage space so I have to be a bit selective, but, to me, a book is far better than a pdf.

It is just remembering which book one found a particular circuit / article in. The 'print to pdf' for a selection of pages which is available these days on the pc is excellent for selecting for a project though.

[lesmw0sec]

Even now I sometimes refer to Langford Smith's radio designer's handbook. Incidentally, my publisher is delighted to note that there is an upsurge in real book sales, so it would appear that the likes of Kindle have not yet won the war!

Originally Posted by MrBungle

I think the future for such books is scan them, convert them to PDF and upload to archive.org / libgen.io or somewhere

This!

You don't even need to convert them to pdf. Their (edit: I meant archive.org) software will convert any image/document/text to pdf/epub/kindle format with OCR.